Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Warner Home Video Expands DVD And Blu-ray Release Slate

There is a rhythm to
it.

A time-honored pattern to
how things are done; done correctly!

So when we see Warner
Home Video peppering its release schedule with TV series, kidvid and film vault
treasures you can be sure that the summer-season theatrical blockbusters will
be getting street dates of their own in short order.

With Man of Steel, Hangover
III, Pacific Rim and The Conjuring all at various stages
of their theatrical runs it is only a matter of time before the studio begins
to move them into the home entertainment market place (all post-Labor Day).The key to doing it correctly is to move the
lesser titles into place first and then drop the big boys in afterwards … you
don’t crush your own releases by doing that way.

New announcement activity
this past week from Warner Home Video — in chronological release order — begins
with a pair of theatrical catalog DVD debuts on Aug. 13, The Frozen Dead and Tormented.

Beginning in 1965 with The
Satan Bug, leading man Dana Andrews made a trio of sci-fi thrillers
that included Crack in the World (opposite Janette Scott) and The
Frozen Dead … the first two have been available to own, now comes the
Aug. 13 release of writer/director Herbert J. Leder’s 1967 mad-scientist chiller, The Frozen Dead.Here, Andrews plays a Nazi madman who has
frozen key members of the Third Reich and is busy at work in his secret lab on
a process to revive this “brain trust.”

Tormented is a 1960 release from cult filmmaker Burt I.
Gordon (Earth vs. the Spider, War of the Colossal Beast, The
Amazing Colossal Man, etc.) which teams Richard Carlson with Juli
Reding — she is a vengeful spirit who haunts Carlson when he caused her death
by his deliberate inaction!

The action then shifts to
Oct. 8 with Blu-ray SKUs for both Batman: The Dark Knight Returns - Deluxe
Edition and Robot Chicken: Season Six (both double-disc sets) and DVD
editions of Adventure Time: Jake vs. Me-Mow, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated:
Season One (a four-disc collection) and Super Friends!: Legacy of Super
Powers.

The following week, Oct.
15, we get both DVD and Blu-ray editions of Star Wars: The Clone Wars -
Season Five (four and three disc sets respectively), a five-disc DVD
collection of Hart of Dixie: The Complete Second Season and the little blue
guys will be back with new adventures in Smurfs: Smurftastic Journey.

Already in place on Oct.
22 are DVD and Blu-ray versions of Nikita: The Complete Third Season,
but this week Warner Home Video has added a rare Friday (Oct. 25) DVD and
Blu-ray product offering, the documentary feature film, Necessary Evil: Villains of DC
Comics.

This last release
announcement seems to suggest — and we are only speculating here — that perhaps
a DC Comics’ superhero feature film release might also be destined for this
release window.Just saying.